While our focus remains on the welfare of farm animals, Certified Humane® certification is complementary to regenerative systems, including Regenerative Organic Certified, ‘Certified Regenerative’ Beef by Greenham, and other individual programs.
Regenerative agricultural practices actively improve the environment and soil carbon sequestration and are a key tool for the future of agriculture in combatting climate change. Intentionally incorporating animals into a pasture system can enrich the soils, promote plant growth, and increase carbon sequestration bringing damaged pasture back to life. Responsible grazing management, part of the Certified Humane® program requirements, will not damage or deplete natural resources and the environment.
The Certified Humane® program verifies farm animal welfare practices that are a critical piece of a complete regenerative agriculture system. Certified Humane® standards ensure these animals are not overcrowded and they are offered the right grasses for their species and the region. Grazing habits are managed by rotating animals around a pasture to verdant areas with plant life at the right stage of their growth cycle for grazing and maximum nutrient benefit. This is known as Rotational Grazing and done correctly, it will nourish the animals and stimulate long term pasture growth, naturally holding carbon in the soil.
What some Certified Humane® producers are saying about their Regenerative Agricultural and Sustainable practices worldwide:
(Select map icons or follow links below to read more about Certified Humane® producers: Greenham • Ingleby Farms • Fazenda da Toca • Korin • Apricot Lane Farms • Hart Dairy • New Barn Organics • Niman Ranch • Vital Farms • White Oak Pastures • Farm Fresh Malaysia • Pete and Gerry’s • Teton Waters Ranch • Idyll Farms • Redwood Hill Farm)
‘Certified Regenerative’ Beef by Greenham
With more than 160 years in the Australian red meat industry, Greenham is a leader in producing premium-quality beef that is good for our consumers, animals, and the planet.
The Greenham Beef Sustainability Standard provides a practical set of indicators and measures for producers to follow. Consistent with globally recognised definitions of regenerative farming, the standard takes a holistic approach to regenerative beef production, which incorporates four key themes.

The standard has been endorsed by Certified Humane®, and environmental and agriculture specialists, Integrity Ag & Environment.
CLICK HERE to view the Greenham Beef Sustainability Standard
CLICK HERE to read more about ‘Certified Regenerative’ Beef by Greenham
Comments and resources for further study from the Certified Humane® Scientific Committee
Brenda Coe, Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, USA
“Livestock production can, and should, be an important part of a sustainable food system. Cattle, sheep, goats, swine, and poultry can be raised on pastures that would otherwise be unsuitable for growing crops, can eat crop residues and other by-products that are often wasted, and produce manure that can be used as fertilizer. Continued efforts to prevent soil and pasture degradation by integrating intensive livestock farming with agricultural crops, controlling animal stocking rates and doing rotational grazing, conducting soil testing and properly fertilizing soil along with pest and weed control will improve soil health, allowing improved pasture recovery and resilience. Advances in animal genetics, veterinary care, feed quality, and grazing systems (rotational and adaptive multi-paddock grazing) are improving soil and pasture quality and also helping shrink the climate footprint of livestock operations. Regenerative livestock production also helps develop more resiliency in the land to climate challenges like droughts, fires, or flooding, benefiting farmers and communities as well as the entire food system.”
Anne Fanatico, PhD Appalachian State University, USA
“Animals are a key part of regenerative agriculture. Grazing animals and livestock help manage the extensive grasslands and rangelands in the Midwest and western states. Forage plants sequester carbon from the atmosphere in living plants and underground in the form of roots and organic matter. In the East, where there is sufficient precipitation for tree cover, agroforestry systems are appropriate for grazing livestock. Trees in particular sequester carbon. Farm animals, such as swine and poultry, are particularly important for nutrient cycling. Animals can eat things that humans do not such as crop residue and by-products. Animals contribute to biodiversity, which is key in resilience. They release the energy and nutrients stored in plants, so it can flow or cycle throughout the farm ecosystem (Gliessman, 2015. Agroecology: The Ecology of Food Systems). Access to the outdoors, pasture, and range is important animal welfare. Perennial pasture and grasslands are ways to grow food without tillage and keeping the carbon in the soil where it belongs.”
Brittany J. Howell, Ph.D., PAS, Fort Hays State University, USA
“Proper grazing and pasture management can reduce unwanted invasive plant species that can greatly impact the water availability in pastures. Invasive trees like red cedars can use up to 42 gallons of water per day depending on tree stem diameter and other factors. Also, grazing animals are part of a natural ecosystem, recycling carbon, adding nutrients to the soil through urine and feces, and removing older plant material which stimulates growth of new material (like nature’s lawnmower). And when it comes to the end of the animal’s life, the animal can be composted to enrich the soil and provide the most environmentally friendly way to utilize those nutrients to regrow plants.”
Photo credits:
Example of an untended pasture, not contributing to environmental improvement; courtesy of NCAT (ATTRA.NCAT.org)
Example of what a pasture can become, WITH the inclusion of grazing animals and proper management; courtesy of NCAT (ATTRA.NCAT.org)
Posted: January 25, 2023 by Certified Humane®
CV. Telur Ayam Bahagia
First Certified Humane® Farm in Indonesia
Founded by Professor Ali Agus, a Faculty of Animal Science professor at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, CV. Telur Ayam Bahagia is a company that raises multiple species of animals in the city of Yogyakarta and focuses on the vertical integration of food production guided by animal welfare principles.
With the addition of 1,000 cage-free Certified Humane® chickens, it is the latest company in Southeast Asia to apply the Certified Humane® logo on the packaging of its eggs, marketed by the AYAM BAHAGIA brand. It is the first farm in Indonesia to start producing Certified Humane® products.
“Our first unit was a premix and probiotics manufacturer. In 2017, I joined the company as Director and began to expand our unit to farm distribution and retail,” says Arya Khoirul Hammam, Director and son of Professor Ali Agus.
He adds: “In 2017, we developed functional eggs with consistently high nutrition. We wanted to include animal welfare in our operation so in 2018 we tried to develop our first free range model farm without any knowledge on the subject and faced many challenges until we found the Certified Humane® program.”
SHIFT IN PRODUCTION
Director Arya Khoirul Hammam reports that after adopting the cage-free model according to Humane Farm Animal Care Standards, production has taken a leap in efficiency:
“Now we know the maximum density of birds that we must respect in the housing area and in the external area, the minimum number of drinkers and feeders, in addition to the space for nests and perches, as well as control of the management of the farm and how daily monitoring of production and welfare indicators must be done. When we tried to promote the free-range model ourselves, we ran into many problems that we didn’t know the answers to. The Certified Humane® program gave us a complete understanding of the free range farm model to guide us as producers”.
HEALTHY ANIMALS
The adoption of animal welfare standards was not without its challenges according to Director Arya Khoirul Hammam. “It certainly takes time to adapt to the new management and train our staff in the new system. The way of managing the farm was our biggest challenge”.
“The value of our company lies in selling products from healthy animals raised with animal welfare principles. Applying Humane Farm Animal Care Standards gives us a competitive advantage within the sector,” he says.
AYAM BAHAGIA brand eggs are sold in the company’s own establishments: in the store, in the restaurant, and in the Amanjiwo Hotel, close to the temple of Borobudur. Contact CV. Telur Ayam Bahagia at info@agromixlesterigroup.com.
Posted: May 17, 2022 by Certified Humane®
Regenerative and Sustainable Agriculture
While our focus remains on the welfare of farm animals, Certified Humane® certification is complementary to regenerative systems, including Regenerative Organic Certified, ‘Certified Regenerative’ Beef by Greenham, and other individual programs.
Regenerative agricultural practices actively improve the environment and soil carbon sequestration and are a key tool for the future of agriculture in combatting climate change. Intentionally incorporating animals into a pasture system can enrich the soils, promote plant growth, and increase carbon sequestration bringing damaged pasture back to life. Responsible grazing management, part of the Certified Humane® program requirements, will not damage or deplete natural resources and the environment.
The Certified Humane® program verifies farm animal welfare practices that are a critical piece of a complete regenerative agriculture system. Certified Humane® standards ensure these animals are not overcrowded and they are offered the right grasses for their species and the region. Grazing habits are managed by rotating animals around a pasture to verdant areas with plant life at the right stage of their growth cycle for grazing and maximum nutrient benefit. This is known as Rotational Grazing and done correctly, it will nourish the animals and stimulate long term pasture growth, naturally holding carbon in the soil.
What some Certified Humane® producers are saying about their Regenerative Agricultural and Sustainable practices worldwide:
(Select map icons or follow links below to read more about Certified Humane® producers: Greenham • Ingleby Farms • Fazenda da Toca • Korin • Apricot Lane Farms • Hart Dairy • New Barn Organics • Niman Ranch • Vital Farms • White Oak Pastures • Farm Fresh Malaysia • Pete and Gerry’s • Teton Waters Ranch • Idyll Farms • Redwood Hill Farm)
‘Certified Regenerative’ Beef by Greenham
With more than 160 years in the Australian red meat industry, Greenham is a leader in producing premium-quality beef that is good for our consumers, animals, and the planet.
The Greenham Beef Sustainability Standard provides a practical set of indicators and measures for producers to follow. Consistent with globally recognised definitions of regenerative farming, the standard takes a holistic approach to regenerative beef production, which incorporates four key themes.
The standard has been endorsed by Certified Humane®, and environmental and agriculture specialists, Integrity Ag & Environment.
CLICK HERE to view the Greenham Beef Sustainability Standard
CLICK HERE to read more about ‘Certified Regenerative’ Beef by Greenham
Comments and resources for further study from the Certified Humane® Scientific Committee
Brenda Coe, Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, USA
“Livestock production can, and should, be an important part of a sustainable food system. Cattle, sheep, goats, swine, and poultry can be raised on pastures that would otherwise be unsuitable for growing crops, can eat crop residues and other by-products that are often wasted, and produce manure that can be used as fertilizer. Continued efforts to prevent soil and pasture degradation by integrating intensive livestock farming with agricultural crops, controlling animal stocking rates and doing rotational grazing, conducting soil testing and properly fertilizing soil along with pest and weed control will improve soil health, allowing improved pasture recovery and resilience. Advances in animal genetics, veterinary care, feed quality, and grazing systems (rotational and adaptive multi-paddock grazing) are improving soil and pasture quality and also helping shrink the climate footprint of livestock operations. Regenerative livestock production also helps develop more resiliency in the land to climate challenges like droughts, fires, or flooding, benefiting farmers and communities as well as the entire food system.”
Anne Fanatico, PhD Appalachian State University, USA
“Animals are a key part of regenerative agriculture. Grazing animals and livestock help manage the extensive grasslands and rangelands in the Midwest and western states. Forage plants sequester carbon from the atmosphere in living plants and underground in the form of roots and organic matter. In the East, where there is sufficient precipitation for tree cover, agroforestry systems are appropriate for grazing livestock. Trees in particular sequester carbon. Farm animals, such as swine and poultry, are particularly important for nutrient cycling. Animals can eat things that humans do not such as crop residue and by-products. Animals contribute to biodiversity, which is key in resilience. They release the energy and nutrients stored in plants, so it can flow or cycle throughout the farm ecosystem (Gliessman, 2015. Agroecology: The Ecology of Food Systems). Access to the outdoors, pasture, and range is important animal welfare. Perennial pasture and grasslands are ways to grow food without tillage and keeping the carbon in the soil where it belongs.”
Brittany J. Howell, Ph.D., PAS, Fort Hays State University, USA
“Proper grazing and pasture management can reduce unwanted invasive plant species that can greatly impact the water availability in pastures. Invasive trees like red cedars can use up to 42 gallons of water per day depending on tree stem diameter and other factors. Also, grazing animals are part of a natural ecosystem, recycling carbon, adding nutrients to the soil through urine and feces, and removing older plant material which stimulates growth of new material (like nature’s lawnmower). And when it comes to the end of the animal’s life, the animal can be composted to enrich the soil and provide the most environmentally friendly way to utilize those nutrients to regrow plants.”
Photo credits:
Example of an untended pasture, not contributing to environmental improvement; courtesy of NCAT (ATTRA.NCAT.org)
Example of what a pasture can become, WITH the inclusion of grazing animals and proper management; courtesy of NCAT (ATTRA.NCAT.org)
Posted: March 14, 2022 by Certified Humane®
AlaSüt Milk & Yoghurt – First Certified Humane® Farm in Turkey
Uluova’s first farm was established in 2015 and the entire rootstock herd was imported from the United States. We were looking for an internationally recognized certificate program to prove to our customers that animal care in our farm is at world standards. Thanks to our understanding established to produce breeding animals beyond market needs and to produce milk in the most natural way, it has made a desirable production farm in the market.
While only Holstein cows were owned between 2015 and 2021, Uluova now has a total of 4000 animals of 4 different breeds in total with the new robotic farm built in 2021. AlaSüt produces pasteurized milk and yoghurt at high standards only from Beta Casein A2 milk and from the farm accredited by Certified Humane®.
Our products are currently only sold in contracted charcuteries in Istanbul and Canakkale in Turkey and our network is planned to expand over time.
To locate Certified Humane® AlaSüt Milk & Yoghurt, please follow this link https://alasut.com/satisnoktalarimiz
Posted: November 22, 2021 by Certified Humane®
Becker Lane Organic
Today’s Farm
To fully understand how and why the pork you’re eating got to your plate here is a bit of history… For millennia, man has practiced the art of keeping swine. The pig is an amazing protein sink where energy from plants and other foodstuffs not consumable by humans can be stored in the form of succulent meat until it is needed for food. The prolific nature and adaptability of pigs to many areas of the world have led to their place of prominence in the modern food chain. This practice remained unaltered until the 19th century. Now with the mass migration of people to cities fewer farmers started to keep more pigs and become more organized, soon the breeding of organized lines developed from the multitude of existing breeds to try to enhance some desired trait such as the amount of fat or muscle an animal had on its carcass, or the ability to exist in cold or hot climates. Although the Spaniards first brought pigs to North America, it was in the nineteenth century that pigs began to spread west into the United States with the Northern and Western European farmers move into Iowa, Illinois, and surrounding areas. As corn became a staple in the Midwest, it wasn’t long until pig production evolved to be its alter ego. Pigs were a way for farmers to utilize the corn they produced on their farms by turning it into pork which could be shipped back east for consumption in the form of meat. This method of adding value gave birth to the Chicago packing industry which soon acted as the processor for most of the pigs produced in the middle part of the United States. By 1915, the number of pigs produced in the United States had reached its zenith, and would never change up to today. Millions of farmers kept sows on their farms and were always counting the weeks until this or that bunch of fat hogs would be ready for market thereby enabling a stream of valuable cash to flow into that farm family’s budget. Hogs became known as “mortgage lifters” and were the backbone of the economy of Midwestern agriculture.
World War II, and the Beginning of Industrialization, Antibiotics
Following the arrival of penicillin during and after World War II, farmers in the western world learned of the seemingly miraculous ability of this new silver bullet to eliminate sickness from their livestock. It seemed even to promote growth, and over the next two decades more types of antibiotics along with penicillin became ubiquitous on any farmyard. Farmers everywhere were using it not only as a method of treating illness, but eventually as a preventative measure included in all feed from birth to near slaughter as a kind of insurance policy. Soon pharmaceutical companies and their vested marketing interest were working hand in hand with local mills, manufacturers, and universities to develop new systems that could more intensively and more densely house livestock. Why not have 1000 pigs, or 5,000 pigs in our barn? Many farmers began to ask themselves. The old limits Mother Nature imposed on the amount of pigs any one farmer could keep were apparently now abated by space age technology and miracles of the laboratory.
The Age of Confinements
By the early to middle 1960’s the “confinement barn” was spreading its way across the United States and the rest of the western world. The technology was an intensive method of housing pigs in groups for growing hogs or single stalls for sows in pregnancy and during lactation. All animals whether group or stall housed stood on concrete floors that had grooves cut into the floor to allow the waste to pass through into a “pit” which was constructed underneath the barn. This manure is kept liquefied and taken out to spread on the surrounding fields seasonally. Automatic feeding machines pass food from outside bins into the barn for the pigs to eat. Automatic lighting and ventilation as well as heating are utilized. All aspects of this system allowed for maximization of scale on one farm. In other words, lots of animals can live in a small space and minimal labor is theoretically required to care for these animals. By now, preventative antibiotic use was the modus operandi of nearly any hog operation that was viewed as progressive in its community. Soon some farmers began to build more and more confinement barns and get more and more pigs. Other farms started to feel pressure from this industrialization effect, and many began to cease pig production if their financial position restricted such expansion. Soon the farms that grew and used the new confinement system didn’t resemble the traditional family model any longer. They became corporatized, and took control of still more pigs, and to satisfy their investor shareholders they often began to make special arrangements with slaughter plants that created new kinds of economies in the rural economic fabric, so the line was blurred between farmer and packer. The idea of a daily cash market in pigs also went by the wayside.
The Other White Meat
By the 1980’s the trend of industrialization had reshaped the landscape of the Midwestern swine business. Most family and small scale traditional pig farms were gone. Hundreds of thousands of pigs could be produced on a single site with multiple confinement barns and little labor. Controversy began to arise over the impact on society and the environment from such farms. Consumers on the whole began to eat less pork for a variety of reasons. The pork industry as a whole decided on a new marketing plan for its product. “The Other White Meat” was a term coined to coincide with the trend to eat leaner meat during this time. In other words, consumers should eat pork because it was healthy and lean like poultry. Packers began to require that pigs be leaner and leaner. A few new breeding companies were formed to genetically select new kinds of hybridized pigs for leanness. Many traditional breeds of pigs that have been in existence for centuries fell out of favor and nearly into extinction as farmers were given this ultimatum from the packing plant. The overall quality of pork declined as consumers were give no choice but to buy this new leaner meat with less red color, less intramuscular fat, and degraded eating quality.
New Beginnings and Post Modern Pigs
The Outdoor System from England
Farmers began to experiment with the historic systems in this new “post modern” setting and learned how to deal with modern concerns over availability on a weekly basis, (traditionally pigs were only available seasonally and much pork was salt cured and preserved for winter months) as well as clean fresh meat in packaging that met modern food safety standards. After a few years of trial and error farmers developed a good system to house pigs outdoors in any season and methods to organize the reproduction of pigs to ensure that market weight mature animals could be ready for slaughter at any time to offer fresh meat to the eating habits of modern consumers in grocery stores or restaurants.
Setting Up the Outdoor System in Iowa, a Learning Experience
Getting the Food to the Customer
Posted: October 1, 2021 by Certified Humane®
V.Food – Viet Nam
First Certified Humane® Egg Supplier and Processing Company in Viet Nam
As an industry pioneer in Viet Nam, V.Food has observed the cage-free movement for laying hens increase around the globe. “We are a leading company in the Vietnamese egg industry and want to differentiate our eggs from the nearly 77 million hens raised in confined in small, crowded, wire cages every year in Viet Nam,” says owner Mr. Truong Chi Thien.
With a vision to improve the living conditions for laying hens and in response to customers’ requests for cage-free eggs, V. Foods has become the first egg supplier and processing company in Viet Nam to achieve the Certified Humane® designation. “We have received a lot of interests from livestock associations, press, reporters, and buyers as we are the first producers in Viet Nam to get certified,” says Mr. Truong Chi Thien.
Since its launch in 2003, the journey to become the leading national egg production company, bringing nearly 1 million safe, traceable eggs to the market everyday has not been easy. Mr. Truong Chi Thien, over nearly 2 decades, has overcome ongoing challenges, by supporting his producer network in Mekong Delta and Southern, and building a modern egg processing plant in Ho Chi Minh City.